


A Place Like This

by Marvelite5Ever



Series: Short, unrelated Cablepool fics inspired by songs (these are NOT songfics) [2]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: And Wade does, Canon Compliant, Gen, Inspired by the song "No Fun" by The Presets, M/M, Nate invites Wade to stay in Providence, Untile he ends up killing Haji Bin Barat, Wade is crazy, and possibly synesthetic, for a time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvelite5Ever/pseuds/Marvelite5Ever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate invites Wade to stay in Providence. And Wade does, for a time. Until he ends up killing Haji Bin Barat. </p>
<p>Canon compliant. Takes place at the end of issue <i>Cable & Deadpool #13</i> and between issues <i>#13</i> and <i>#14.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place Like This

**Author's Note:**

> I got obsessed with “No Fun” by The Presets, and then this happened. 
> 
> Also, I was caffeinated and feeling kind of crazy, lol.

* * *

* * *

After the whole techno-organic-alien-baby adventure, Wade went with Nate back to Providence. Don't look like that—of course he did! After going to all that trouble to save him, it would be sad if Nate were to keel over before getting back to Providence. Because maybe nobody else noticed, but Nate was a liiiiiiitle bit shaky there—sure, he hid it, since he was a proud bastard who couldn't show weakness, but Wade could still see the shakiness, the stiffness around the new techno-organic arm. Hey, if you just fought an alien baby and turned it into a new arm after your previous techno-organic arm was ripped off your body, you'd be a little shaky, too! 

Whew, that was a long paragraph. Especially to begin a story with. Sometimes Wade wondered what the hell authors were thinking—especially when they did stupid things like accidentally write 'Nate' instead of 'Wade.' 

For the sake of keeping that paragraph short and moving on with the story, Wade went with Nate back to Providence. (Not like he actually had a choice, what with the whole “Bodyslide by two!” conundrum. Or maybe not conundrum, but an issue, except not a comic issue, and 'problem' was a much more boringer word and 'conundrum' was funner.)

Heh, he loved it when authors used bogus grammar in the narration. He was pretty sure it reflected more on their writing skills than on his state of mind. 

And wow, what a long-winded and circuitous way of getting to the point. Somebody had had caffeine, it looked like. 

And no, it wasn't him! Just because he acted like he was caffeinated and ADD all the time didn't mean that he was actually caffeinated! 

And no, he totally wasn't going on some pointless inner rant and whistling Chopsticks to avoid the fact that he was standing on a balcony in Providence with Nate after Nate had almost died and now the messiah-wannabe was looking at him with a kind of softened expression, and the clouds behind him were low and kind of magenta and gold from the setting sun, and the sky was kind of indigo, and Providence was spread out below them in all its futuristic, chrome domes and turrets, and Wade thought that it would be fun to roll off one of those roofs, or maybe push a slinky or a long, rambling sentence down one. Watch the words tumble over themselves and splash in the ocean to get nom-nomed by the waves. 

Looking down, the waves kind of looked like they had gold fillings, glinting in the sunset-light.  
The air was cool and salty and stung at his sore-covered skin where his mask was partly rolled up, and the slight pain was nice because it got rid of a tiny bit of the surreality of the scene, though not much of it. Though Wade supposed surreality was better than unreality, so in his opinion currently he was winning. 

Nate was still looking at him. How long had it been? Had the silence stretched on all long and awkwardly? Or was his mind just whirling at little-kid-spinning-in-circles-with-arms-out-and-then-tucking-arms-in speed? 

Providence really was very pretty. The wrongness of the pretty itched at the ugly blemishes on Wade's skin, and he felt like a wart standing there on the balcony, marring an otherwise very pretty setting.  
Maybe he should go. 

“You can stay if you want, Wade,” Nate said, and Wade glanced at him (and wow, the long-light shadows really defined his chiseled features, and also made his left eye look kind of blank and weird and wet-eye shiny, rather than mutant-glowy shiny). “There's a place for you here in Providence.” 

Nate put a hand on his shoulder, his grip a bit stronger than it strictly needed to be, and Wade was pretty sure that it had a lot to do with Nate not yet being completely stable on his two feet. 

So Wade put a hand on Nate's hand on his shoulder, just to make sure he wasn't going to fall over on him (no, seriously, that was the only reason! Because 350-pound half-metal guy falling on him? Even with his healing factor, that would suck).

“Here?” Wade asked, looking around again at the sci-fi landscape of Providence, all white-gold and pink-gold in the lighting, ocean horizon stretching blue or gold in every direction to melt into the sky and the golden-butter dollop of sun. People were walking about on clean paths, looking all tiny and harmonious like ants. No violence, no blood, no dirt and no filth. 

Wade shook his head. “I could go crazy in a place like this!”

Nate's lips were curling at the corners, in that way that made the skin by his eyes crinkle. _“Crazy,_ you say.” 

“Crazy- _er,”_ Wade huffed. Nate's hand tightened further on his shoulder before loosening, and Wade was getting a little bit worried about him. “All I'm sayin' is…” Wade watched Nate's face, and his eyes were kind of shadowed by the slanting sunrays, so it was kind of hard to get a read on him, but Wade was becoming pretty sure that he was the only thing keeping Nate from falling to his knees. “I could go...” 

Wade could feel Nate's gaze boring into his own, even through the mask, and he glanced around the island again, wondering how the buildings were remaining so clean when there were seagulls everywhere. 

When he spoke again—not too long later, because silences with him didn't tend to last very long—his voice was quiet as he uttered the word “happy,” which was _totally_ not the word he'd meant to come out, “in a place like this.” 

And wasn't that a terrifying thought?

The slight curl of Nate's lips pulled into a slow-burn grin, which made Wade feel strangely warm, even as a chilly breeze brushed around them like it was trying to paint the evening on their skin and clothes. 

Too bad for the breeze that Wade's skin was already adorned with the marks of a nightmare. 

Nate, though—the evening looked good in his hair. All soft and golding and bluing. 

Sometimes Wade wanted to conk his occasional poetic inclination on the head, like one of those whack-a-moles. With a large hammer. Like, a Mjolnir-type hammer. 

“You can leave whenever you want,” Nate said, his deep voice rumbly and smooth (those two adjectives could totally go together, shut up!) and a pleasant interruption to the runaway train that was Wade's thoughts, snapping him back onto a track before the thought-train-cars careened off a bridge and ended up in a huge explosion that took the bridge down and part of the mountainside, too. “I won't try to keep you here. But I'd…” Nate paused, tongue darting out just barely over the inside-outside edge of his lips, “appreciate it, if you'd give Providence a chance.”

Wade stared at him for a moment, blinking behind the half-mask. Nate's hand was still on his shoulder, a little tighter than it needed to be, and Providence stretched out behind him like a glimpse of a better future, something that could only have come from a secret, desperately hopeful part of Nate's mind. 

It came on hard, all of a sudden—a feeling that Wade hadn't felt for a while—and he was shaking in his bones as the sunset dipped him in gold.

Reeling and dizzy, he was suddenly aware that his hand was still on top of Nate's hand on his shoulder, and that Nate's grip was possibly the only thing keeping him from falling to his knees. 

Aww, who was he fighting? “Think I'll settle down, stay for a while,” he said, trying for flippant, but it was kind of hard to be flippant when his legs were cherry-licorice jello and the ocean spray was twisting his tongue and either the sunlight on his back or Nate's hand on his shoulder had him feeling pleasantly warmed. 

“Not that I'm really the settling down _type,”_ Wade said quickly, “but… it might be _nice…”_ his nose crinkled at the funny-tasting word, “for a little bit… I mean,” he shrugged beneath the weight of Nate's flesh hand (he had a feeling Nate didn't at the moment quite trust the metal one—but then, would _you_ trust a limb that had, just an hour previous, been an alien baby? Yeah, probably not, huh?), “I really got nothin' better to do…” 

(Which was kind of Nate's fault, actually. There wouldn't be any merc jobs coming his way now that everyone thought he'd lobotomized the Savior.)

He glanced at Nate out of the corner of his eyes to see Nate's face shifting into an expression that looked happy in a pleased and peaceful way—and such, was not an expression Wade ever associated as being any cause of himself. “I'll have an apartment set up for you.” 

“I better get a nice view of the ocean!” Wade said, even as the sun took a breath and submerged itself under the horizon, leeching with it all the gold from Nate and leaving just a pallor of blue, that nevertheless didn't quite manage to pale Nate's smile. 

When they walked inside from the dying light, Nate leaned on him slightly, trying not to. 

But Wade just put an arm around the other man's waist and let him.

* * *

_**~A few weeks later~** _

* * *

Wade was bored out of his fucking _mind._ He'd already mapped out all his favorite parkour paths along the roofs and the best Mexican diners and enchiladas on the island. He'd been kind of keeping an eye on Nate, but mostly Nate was sleeping and reading old scrolls that hadn't aged quite as gracefully as he had. Boring, right? 

“Do you _ever_ have any fun?” Wade asked him, hopping in through the window and moonwalking over to where Nate was sitting at his desk all contemplative-like. 

“I mean,” Wade continued, resting one arm on Nate's metal shoulder and gesturing around with the other, “you're home all alone when you could be outside in the summer on this beautiful island! A beautiful island out there, that you built with your own mind or whatever, and you're practically in lockdown in this building! I keep waiting for the bars to slam down over your windows and keep me out.” 

“It's comfortable enough,” Nate said, looking somewhat amused. 

“Wrapped up, comatose, lying like a rug,” Wade said, counting the three points on four of his fingers. He wiggled them in front of Nate's face, snorting and shaking his head (he wasn't wearing his mask or his costume, since that didn't feel right on Providence, so he was wearing cargo shorts and a bright Hawaiian t-shirt instead). “Yeah, nope. Ding dong!” He poked Nate's nose, which made the wannabe-messiah crinkle said nose slightly and look somewhat peeved, which was kind of funny. “Ringing from outside! Gentleman's request: let's go for a ride!” 

Stepping back, Wade gestured broadly. “Diamonds in the back, sunroof top… just like that song, y'know? I think I knew it when I was young, not sure I remember anymore, but whatever.” He grabbed Nate's arm and tried to tug him out of the chair. “Come _on!_ Music makes you wanna _whoop!_ Y'know? _Nggg.”_ Nate wouldn't budge. “You ten ton _elephant...”_

Nate definitely looked amused. Which was something, Wade supposed. 

“I'm supposed to be resting,” Nate said, not unkindly. “And I have some...” he glanced at the scrolls on his desk, his gaze sobering for a moment, “things, to look over.” 

“You'd choose those dusty old scrolls over my fabulous and entertaining self?” Wade asked indignantly as he let go of Nate's arm, falling onto his rump in a huff, crossing his legs and arms and pouting there on the floor. “You are _no fun,_ Nate. No fun.” 

Arms kept crossed, he stood up by straightening his legs and spinning out of the criss-cross-apple-sauce position, lifting a foot to start walking towards the door, hands coming up to rub over his face. “I'm gonna go fucking _crazy_ in this place…”

“Wade…” Nate said, and Wade turned back to look at him, “if you're not happy here, you can always leave. I want…” Nate's lips pursed, and he looked somewhat troubled, though he met Wade's gaze with full sincerity. “I wouldn't want you to stay if you're not happy. Nothing's keeping you here.” 

_You are,_ Wade thought, then immediately smashed the thought with a huge mental spatula. “Well, like I said…” Wade said, glancing away and shrugging, shifting slightly, “I've got nothing else to do. And there's free food!” He looked back at Nate to grin his largest. “And there's that chimichanga place that's just to _kill_ for.” 

Nate raised his eyebrows and his lips thinned slightly at the word choice, and Wade smirked at him as he strolled back towards the window, walking backwards, hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Think I'll stay for a while longer.” 

“There's certainly a place here for you for as long as you want it,” Nate said, eyebrows lowering the small amount they'd risen, lips untightening the small amount that they'd tightened. 

“So you've said, big guy,” Wade said, making a show of rolling his eyes. Was it possible to roll one's eyes right out of one's head? “You're starting to repeat yourself—gettin' _senile._ Maybe you should forget reading ancient scrolls and put some of your energy instead into focusing on not getting any older, huh?”

Nate had that calm, amused look again. “I'm not sure that that's how it works.” 

“Works for me!” Wade said, spreading his hands and sitting on the window ledge, putting on his most wise and earnest expression. “I spend at least ten minutes every day focusing on not getting any older, and just _look_ at the wonders it has done for my complexion and musculature!” He gestured to himself, tossing Nate an only-half-self-deprecating smirk (no really, only half). 

Nate leaned back in his chair, eyes traveling over Wade's body, lips twitching when he met Wade's gaze again. “I'll have to try it, then.” 

Sometimes around Nate, Wade got to thinking that his eardrums were ticklish. 

“You do that, old man,” he said with a flippant wave, leaning back out the window till his center of balance tipped over and he was tucked in a ball and rolling in the air, reaching out a hand to grab a ledge and catch himself. His feet connected with the wall and pushed off, back-flipping and grabbing onto the ledge of the next building over, where he continued parkouring his way up onto the roof where he swung around a pole a few times before launching off and somersaulting down the other side of the sloped roof. 

Buildings were like playgrounds—much more fun when you broke the rules about how they were designed to be used! 

Ooh, there was an idea! Maybe he'd go grab a cardboard box and then sit on it and slide down one of the roofs—maybe off the island and into the ocean! Then one of the Providence immigration boats would have to fish him out again. That had been fun. Last time he'd ended up going through screening again, and they'd confiscated the compostable-plasticky-material butter knife he kept in his shoe. They hadn't found the compostable-plasticky-material fork he kept in his underwear, though. Maybe he should test them again. 

(In the room he'd left, Nate had stood up quickly to watch his progress, expression something between concerned and fond.)

* * *

_**~A few weeks later~** _

* * *

Wade was sitting on a smooth, chrome roof (still remarkably unblemished by bird poop), swinging his legs and staring out over the moonlit island. 

Damn, Providence looked all mysterious and futuristic-y at night, ghostly against the sky that stretched back in time billions of years to show the Milky Way galaxy, which Wade thought looked kind of like a black-magic pancake with butter on the wrong side, that was frozen mid-flip, except someone had put the syrup on before syrup was supposed to go on pancakes, and drops of it were splattering everywhere—billions and billions of drops of toxic-bright syrup that looked like it tasted sting-your-mouth minty. Hm, mint syrup on pancakes. Might be worth a try. 

(But ultimately, maple would always reign supreme. HAIL CANADA!)

And then there was Providence itself, of course, all silvery and clean lines and edges, frozen spinning tops at the height of their spinning, when they were all upright and stable. Everything—the sky, the buildings—felt like it had been frozen in the middle of whirling, and it gave Wade a dizzy sensation, like he was still moving and inertia was going to fling him very far into the black waves that made soft crashing noises against the metal island. 

_Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom-nom,_ went the waves. _Nom-nom-nom-nom._

Providence felt like it was going to fade away beneath Wade's feet any second, like the impossible dream of the future it was—something that did not belong in the twenty-first century. He felt like he needed to keep willing Providence to exist or the illusion would fade and he'd find he'd been hallucinating all along—except, his hallucinations and fantasies never materialized outside of his own head. 

That was one difference between him and Nate, he supposed. But there were a lot of differences, and he didn't care to think about them. He was pretty sure Nate never had the feeling he was walking on air when he was still walking on the ground—when Nate walked on air, he _actually literally_ walked on air. Except, not anymore, since he'd lost his powers. And he was _still_ recovering and mostly staying in his building or whatever. 

How long did recovering from a stupid alien baby getting grafted into you _take?_ Geez. Wade should just go and hit him with a pillow until he got up off his lazy, handsome ass already (wait, no, he totally didn't think that!). 

Quick, he had to think of something else! Plausible deniability! 

Here was sitting on a roof and swinging his legs and decidedly _not_ going to look for a pillow suitably large enough to hit Priscilla in the face with, feeling oddly calm in a way that begot a strategically-placed evil clown to jump out from behind you and play a bazooka in your ear. 

Wait, no, not a bazooka—a kazoo! That's what he meant! 

He'd slap himself in the face if he wasn't sitting on his hands so they didn't tap-dance away from him and cause him to stretch out on his stomach since his legs wouldn't budge, and end up rolling off the roof again. He wasn't supposed to do that anymore since apparently the sound of his bones cracking disturbed the hippie pacifists. Most of which were currently sleeping at the moment, though. 

Most. Obviously not all of them, since there was music coming from one side of the island, though it wasn't very loud. It certainly wasn't a rock concert or anything. Like everything on Providence—except for the Mexican cuisine—it sounded of mindfulness and tasted of granola. 

Everything was so goddamned pretty and happy on the island, and the lack of violence was like a silence in Wade's mind. (Silences just begged to be filled.) What if he went crazy and killed someone? 

Looking solemnly out over Providence, Wade sighed, biting worriedly at his lower lip till he tasted the salty, copper tang of blood. 

When he grinned, it was red and unstable. “I could go _crazy_ in a place like this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
